Some Rules Are Meant To Be Broken, At Least According To These 89 Unethical Life Hacks

Car dealerships have good snacks.

My kids fully exploited this when we were car shopping recently and my 13yo has announced she's going to continue to do so at the busy one based inside a shopping centre we go to. On a Saturday, they're busy and she plans to just wave towards someone in a car if asked who she's with.

Hot chocolates, biscuits, cans of softdrink, bags of chips, brownies etc. BYD was the best.

The $2 meal steal at McDonalds (only slightly unethical):

my go-to in a pinch when I'm starving and just need a cheap option- the McDonalds app always offers some sort of freebies with min purchase, and free fries with a lot of sports promos rn so get a $2 mcchicken (or, like $2-something for a double-cheeseburger), free fry and keep a cup to sneak a free refill.... though many locations are onto this and have removed fountain drink stations, there are still many that do so have scouted them out in my area because I'm just that fn broke these days

Taco Bell Breakfast hack (entirely ethical):

Instead of ordering a combo ($7+), order separately and side eggs are like $0.30 each, side potatoes $0.60, sausage side $1.40, add cheese for $0.50, sauce is free

(( I'm sure Prices vary by region but you get the gist of it ymmv))

ETA BONUS: if you have a Costco in your area and know someone with a membership, you can pay to have them buy you a gift card and then you can use it to purchase discounted gas without a membership.

Even to this day, lots of parking garages allow you to take a new ticket by pressing the button at the entrance, often giving you free "30 minute" parking g etc.

Always be a little less helpful than you’re actually capable of. Otherwise congratulations—you’ve just been promoted to “the person who always does it.”

If you automate your job, keep that close to the chest and look busy when needed. If the business knows you automated your job then will give you more work or possibly cut you.

If your coworker always asks you to do stuff for them, say "yes" but then don't do it. That will teach them to stop asking you to do stuff for them.

I know someone who used a prepaid card for purchases on an airline. They would get tallied after the flight. The card did not carry a big enough balance.

Toilet paper is free if you're willing to get it by filling your pockets in public bathrooms or grabbing handfuls of fast food napkins.

My family got through the covid supply chain shortages without problem thanks to one of my hoarding stashes, because for years all clean fast food napkins got stuffed in a container marked Backup TP.

Someone told me you don't have to fully weigh your bulk items such as fruit/veg at the self-aerve checkout, you can just have it half on the scale.

There are some stores that let you buy gift cards with a credit card. You can then "pay" yourself or a friend through paypal. You have now turned credit into cash without the insane interest rate that credit card companies charge for cash advances.

If you have a paypal attached to your Lyft it takes 2 days to charge you

So if you’re ever in need of an emergency ride home with nothing in your bank account…

If an arena, concert, sporting event, etc. is giving you a hard time about bringing in your own water, say “I thought pregnant women were allowed to bring water in.”

You’re not saying you’re pregnant, you’re just implying it. If you’re a guy, let them question gender norms with you!

I haven't done this but friends that work retail have described it.

Say you are having a big dinner party and want nice plates and glasses. Buy the set, have the party and then return them the next week.

You can also "buy" a big TV for a superbowl party but check the return policy as these are often restricted.

Use implied consent in emails. If you want to so something but may run into flack for it with your boss, send and email basically saying I'm going to do X-and-so. Let me know if you have any questions. If they don't reply with an objection, they consented. It's legally binding, too. A lawyer told me that one. Ethical? Not always. Legal? It was the advice of a lawyer in the US federal system. I didn't ask if it is in all 50 states, but I'm thinking that it could be, given the nature of contracts and agreements.

Not unethical but if you are using YouTube and you don’t pay for premium and get an ad when you pick what you want to watch just hit the back button on your remote to get back to the menu page and pick what you want to watch again, the ad is bypassed and you can watch whatever you picked without waiting for the ad to finish playing. Sometimes you need to do it twice if there are 2 ads back to back.

If you’re behind on credit card payments but still have room in your limit you can buy something expensive and then return it. It will then count as a payment for the current month and push the balance to the next statement. It could save you paying interest on it if you’re unable to pay off your full balance. You obviously still owe the same total amount that you originally did but have an extra month to pay whatever the amount was you returned.

*Edit: I should have said counts as a credit, not counts as a payment.

If you've parked somewhere you're not allowed to, look around the parking lot for a car that already has a parking ticket tucked under its windshield wiper. Take the ticket off that car and put it on yours. Parking enforcement officers won't give another ticket to a car that already has one.

If you live in an apartment complex with coin-operated or card-operated washers and dryers, look up the exact machine model number online. You can often buy the physical master key on eBay for under $10, allowing you to bypass payment entirely.

Use Brave or Duck Duck Go as a browser and you don’t get adds on YouTube. No need to pay for premium membership.

Plus you aren’t giving money to the evil overlords that way.

99% of items you purchase either have no serial number linking them to your purchase or the serial numbers will never be checked.

Because of this, there’s no way to really know if the item a company like Amazon or Walmart receives in a return is the one that was actually purchased during the transaction in question. M

This would allow a person to purchase an item they need. Use that item as they wish and, in the event that the item breaks for whatever reason, a second item can be purchased. The broken item can then be returned under the assumption that it was the second item that arrived broken, since the second item has a new return period associated with it.